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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27871245">The Audition</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickflaw/pseuds/kickflaw'>kickflaw</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Castle [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bottom Merlin (Merlin), D/s relationship, Dominance, Established Relationship, Failboats In Love, Fisting, Heavy BDSM, M/M, POV Merlin (Merlin), Painplay, Rimming, Scening, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Club, Smut, Submission, Top Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:15:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,545</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27871245</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickflaw/pseuds/kickflaw</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Merlin came around, there have been <i>problems</i>. (Castle Extra)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Castle [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>188</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Audition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is an unbetaed and expanded version of a work that was originally posted to my now-defunct Livejournal many, many moons ago. (MANY, MANY MOONS OMG). It occurs after the events in Castle (the rules by which we live) and shows the development of Merlin and Arthur's D/S relationship in that setting. I'm not done with this universe yet, apparently. Ten years later, who knew?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">
  <b>The Audition</b>
</p><p class="western">This isn’t the second, or the third, or even the sixth time Merlin has returned to Castle. No, by now he’s lost count. He’s hooked. Addicted. <em>Committed</em>. He has his special VIP membership card (free, courtesy of Arthur) and a growing reputation too (also courtesy of Arthur). He has a lot less need to watch his favorite porno films—he’s practically living one, after all.</p><p class="western">And it’s <em>fantastic</em>. Sometimes Merlin gets exasperated about it—he could’ve been enjoying the BDSM scene for years if he had just gotten over himself sooner. But then again: Arthur. Things might’ve turned out differently if he hadn’t had a stick up his arse for so long, and he quite likes the way life is going for him now. Butt plugs are so much more pleasant than repression.</p><p class="western">Beneath his bed there’s a locked chest that holds his new collection of such toys. Springing them on Arthur is one of Merlin’s great delights: when he shows up stretched and wet and eager it puts Arthur through the roof. The chest holds his new outfits, too, because Will is still a champion tosser who raids Merlin’s closet when he can’t be arsed to do his own laundry. And maybe Will knows about Merlin’s new thing, since they seem to share this thing, but he doesn’t need to find out yet that Arthur likes to dress Merlin up once in awhile.</p><p class="western">Arthur likes to give Merlin bits and bobs to wear around his throat, his wrists. A chain-mail necklace. Leather cuffs. And Merlin, well, he likes to wear them: they both know exactly what that’s about.</p><p class="western">That’s what tonight’s about. That’s why Merlin’s here, on his knees, mouthing at Arthur’s cock through his pants, while the other people in the room watch them.</p><p class="western">This isn’t the first or second or tenth time he’s been allowed to suck Arthur off, but it is the first time he’s done it on display.</p><p class="western">It’s complicated, see. Of course it is, it’s kink. But Arthur <em>owns</em> Castle, he doesn’t just visit or work there. Castle is more than his outlet, hobby, or job: it’s his business, and he has responsibilities. Things he has to do to keep it the ‘best BDSM club in the United Kingdom.’ He doesn’t just deal with investors, negotiate legalities, manage the taxes and schmooze the VIP members. He scenes, he always has. And there have been problems since Merlin came around.</p><p class="western">Terrible, wonderful problems like Arthur turning away subs that want a sexual element to their private experience. Like Arthur canceling appointments when Merlin shows up unannounced (he doesn’t anymore). Like Arthur fighting with Morgause, flat out shouting that she may be the General Manager, but he can still fire her if she continues to harangue him for letting a relationship get so serious it effects his work.</p><p class="western">Problems like Arthur not wanting to do public scenes. Not just because it might upset Merlin (he swears it won’t, but he’s kind of lying) but because he doesn’t want to touch anyone else that way anymore. He’s going to officially collar Merlin eventually, and that will be that. Arthur is the Prince, one of the main fucking attractions. It’s a problem.</p><p class="western">So, a solution. It was Morgana’s idea, naturally.</p><p class="western"><em>Think of it as an audition or an interview</em>, Morgause had murmured to Merlin right before it started: his first semi-public scene. She doesn’t like him very much. Even now, with her little notebook and narrow gaze, she’s trying to throw him off, to cast a spell of nervous stress on his mind.</p><p class="western">It won’t work— this is him and <em>Arthur</em>, and Merlin doesn’t come back to Castle just for the kink. Sure, he loves the place, but it’s got nothing on the man on the throne. The one who can put him into subspace so fast he hits the floor, who feels more like the other side of Merlin’s soul than a missing piece of Merlin’s sex life. And who, strangely enough, seems to be as into Merlin as vice versa. And Merlin, Merlin has it <em>bad, </em>even though he'd be the first to admit Arthur is a jackass. </p><p class="western">But Arthur is so far out of Merlin's league he might as well be on Jupiter. Merlin still hasn’t quite figured out what he’s done right to make Arthur look at him the way he does. But Arthur’s getting something out of their—arrangement? —relationship? —love affair? —whatever the hell you want to all this thing. That’s sure enough. Something more than Merlin’s snark and great blowjobs. It’s...ineffable. What’s between them.</p><p class="western">Fuck Morgause, Merlin could do this in front of the Queen, just sink to his knees and suck down on denim while Arthur strokes the hair behind his ears and stays excruciatingly, <em>masterfully</em> silent.</p><p class="western">Morgause is silent too, and Morgana, and Aredian and Valiant and Edwin and Sophia and beautiful, submissive Freya. Merlin watches her sometimes and thinks: <em>goals</em>. But for now, Merlin just closes his eyes and focuses on Arthur. He can’t think about the discussion they’ll have afterwards about his <em>performance</em>. He inhales and exhales hot breath that pushes back against his chin with the heady smell of Arthur’s arousal.</p><p class="western">The bones of his ankles ache, both fastened tight in the metal at each end of a two-foot-long spreader bar, one of Arthur’s favorites. There’s a short chain attached the bar, connected to leather cuffs that keep Merlin’s wrists down, arms taut behind him. Merlin is acutely aware of the restraining pressure; he likes to roll his shoulders against it and feel the snug surety of the fits, especially when he’s naked like this. It froths in his blood. He does that now, really pulls, and inhales again against saliva-damp cloth, already drifting towards that mesmerized haze of physical sensation he lives for. Freedom.</p><p class="western">Arthur hooks his thumbs into the belt loops of his pants and jerks them down suddenly, so suddenly that Merlin is startled by the smack of Arthur’s hard cock against his cheek (of course he isn’t wearing anything underneath). He goes after it eagerly, opens his mouth and sucks up the long vein of it, getting shaky from the way it pulses on his tongue. Thank fucking god for the cock ring Arthur put on him. He’s so ready to come it hurts.</p><p class="western">“Slow,” Arthur commands.</p><p class="western">Merlin obeys. He backs off, dropping little kisses around the root of Arthur’s cock, where his balls are drawn gorgeous and close for Merlin to nose at. Arthur’s smell is strongest here, a potent jolt of heat in Merlin’s belly. Licking upwards, light, all about about his breath and the quickly-drying dampness of thin stripes of saliva. He curves his mouth over Arthur’s exposed and bruise-purple crown but never sucks it in, though his tongue aches for want of it. Merlin’s become much better at resisting these urges. He strokes Arthur’s slit with pouted, closed lips, enjoying the slow wet smear of pre-come on his mouth, shiny as a girl’s lip gloss.</p><p class="western">Another jolt because—yeah, Arthur likes to dress him up sometimes, likes him in pink -cheeked with a corset to match, the whalebone kind that leaves Merlin gasping, its own form of bondage. He gasps a little now, imagining a room full of Castle patrons watching him keen in high heels and stockings while Arthur fingers him and gets him all “wet like a girl, Merlin, your boycunt so needy for me.”</p><p class="western">Arthur pets his cheekbones, eyelids and brows; he pushes his thumb against the slick inside Merlin’s upper lip. Opening his mouth wider, Merlin licks around the head of Arthur’s cock once, twice, wetly and swirling like it’s an ice cream cone and he’s keeping all the melting bits from dripping off. Then he keeps licking, switching between the tip and the broad, flat swath of his tongue. Up and down, around. Up and down. Around.</p><p class="western">It’s a sinking, a meditation; Merlin’s chin grows damp with spit. A little salty, a little tang. This is nice—he could do this all night, could lick Arthur until his tongue is sore.</p><p class="western">Arthur’s cock seems like it’s straining toward him. There’s reward and delicious threat in the way Arthur grips Merlin’s jaw with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, fully controlling his head as he says, “Good, good. You’ve done well, you’ve earned more,” and doesn’t even give Merlin the chance to sigh happily before he’s forcing his way in, feeding his cock through the trap of Merlin’s teeth.</p><p class="western">Merlin’s vision bleeds white with pleasure, it’s so good, finally getting Arthur into his throat. He seals down with his lips, lays his tongue along his bottom teeth, then all out pulls with his mouth, sucks long and hard, swallowing, swallowing.</p><p class="western">Arthur eases back, then in again harder, and harder again, while Merlin moans with mouth open wide. He’s gotten so much better, but he still can’t help the little choking sounds he makes each time Arthur hits the back of his throat and slides past it. Arthur fucks his face, thrusting forward and tugging Merlin in at the same moment, this moment, and this moment, and it makes wet, popping, slurping noises that bounce around the otherwise silent chamber.</p><p class="western">The blunt force of Arthur’s cock hits the roof of Merlin’s mouth and bangs into his cheeks as Arthur tilts Merlin’s head slightly sideways. Merlin shudders at the new angle, his nose is mashing into Arthur’s hip on each downstroke. His throat’s getting raw; he’s drooling out the corners of his mouth, and he’s totally gone now, into his mindless, thoughtless place. Some kind of Pavlovian response to Arthur’s absolute domination, to being <em>used</em>. He’s not breathing, he can’t, not really—but that just makes it better.</p><p class="western">Arthur doesn’t come on Merlin’s face this time. He goes off silently, with no warning, straight onto Merlin’s tongue, and grunts, “Swallow,” as Merlin struggles, unprepared. Merlin manages anyway, gratefully swallowing through the last twitches of Arthur’s orgasm, and when Arthur lets him go, he drops his head and pants. There are tears on his cheeks.</p><p class="western">“Very good,” Arthur soothes, “Very good, my love. Very good.” He walks around behind Merlin and places a foot between Merlin’s shoulder blades, pushing until Merlin’s forehead is resting on the cool floor and his body is stretched painfully in the grip of the restraints. “What next?” he asks idly, running the sole of his boot down the length of Merlin’s spine, hurting-good. “Hm, I think…”</p><p class="western">If Merlin could truly want anything in this space, other than to feel and to <em>please</em>, Arthur would know. Arthur can read Merlin’s mind. He always can. Proof: he finishes, grinding the toe of his boot into the crack between Merlin’s arsecheeks, with, “I think you want to come on my fingers tonight, yes, pet? No...you want more than that. Mmm, you want me to get my fist deep inside you, til you can feel it in your throat, don’t you? Tell me.”</p><p class="western">Half-rant, half-plea, it bursts out like this: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, please, please, please, <em>yes, please</em>—”</p><p class="western">“Hush now,” says Arthur. Merlin’s mouth snaps shut around another crazed agreement, though he has to strain against his cuffs and shove his face into the floor to stop the sound. His head is a flood of clean light and trust, his body already loosening in glorious expectation as he distantly distantly the shuffle-click-thud of Arthur kneeling behind him.</p><p class="western">The spreader bar has kept Merlin’s legs still and apart, which was perfectly painful when he was up on his knees, but is frustrating now that he knows it will prevent him from spreading <em>more</em>, really getting porn star-wide for Arthur to use him. He loves the strain in his hips when Arthur opens his legs as far apart as they can take. He could sob for the yawning emptiness inside that he’s so much more aware of now that the promise of something filling his body has been made.</p><p class="western">Arthur hasn’t brought his gloves to their scene; his warm, strong fingers are bliss gripping, massaging Merlin’s arse, exposing his entrance with sharp pulls of his thumbs. God, they can see him, can’t they? All of them. They can see all of it, the dusky clench of his hole, the way he trembles pathetically, presses quiet whines into the tile. He needs his ball gag, oh hell, he needs it, or he’ll ruin everything—</p><p class="western">“You’ll be all right, Merlin. I’ve got you,” Arthur reassures him. The words ride on breath against his skin, shockingly close to Merlin, just before Arthur brings his tongue out and pushes it hard against Merlin’s arse.</p><p class="western">And he does, of course he does. Merlin writhes, bites down on his lower lip to prevent any more un-permitted sound from seeping out. That spark of hurt, his desire to be so good, so good for Arthur, washes through him until he’s clean of everything but sensation, the pressure and sweep of Arthur licking into him.</p><p class="western">God, Arthur, with his perfect fucking, is fucking perfect.</p><p class="western">Something about this, about being opened slowly with Arthur’s mouth, is intensely soothing. Even here, with eyes all over them, Merlin can slide away into a dream. Halfway between reality and something else, he floats. When Arthur swirls his tongue deeper, it’s a gentle, trusting demand, utterly sure of Merlin’s ability to take whatever he wants to give, it just—calms.</p><p class="western">Merlin calms. He can take whatever Arthur wants to give. Arthur wants to give whatever he can take. His breath lulls, deep and slow. Deep inhales, slow exhales. On and on and on and on as Arthur coaxes with his tongue, twists it, curls it and buries it deep. Everything here is just easy, so easy.</p><p class="western">Arthur laps around the edges of Merlin’s hole, up to the small of his back and down to tap lightly at his balls, and then, inexorably, back to push against the spot where Merlin’s body gives. First beneath the force of Arthur’s tongue and, following that, a finger. Dry-wet with saliva only, Arthur works one long digit in beside his tongue, pushing until it’s in to the last knuckle, crooking it to nudge against Merlin’s prostate. Merlin rolls his hips against the penetration, riding into it, because instantly everything is so much better and yet not quite enough. But Merlin can wait. He could wait forever.</p><p class="western">Merlin’s so relaxed it barely registers at first that Arthur’s pulling his mouth away, until he straightens up over Merlin’s bowed back and scrapes his nails harshly in the path his boot took before. The still-fresh whip welts from an earlier, private scene light up—a sweet song of pain that drives Merlin straight out of his half-sleeping trance and into a different kind of subspace altogether, a keening, needy one that can’t wait, no, no way, he can’t, he <em>needs</em>—needs it now now now!</p><p class="western">“Oh, fuck, oh, please—” Merlin babbles.</p><p class="western">“Quiet,” instructs Arthur. Merlin’s mouth clamps shut of it’s own accord.</p><p class="western">The lube Arthur spills between Merlin’s arsecheeks is cold, but it warms quickly. Arthur scoops through it when he slides his finger out. Then he shoves back in again with two and Merlin’s so ready these days, it’s effortless. His body says what he’s not allowed to, accepts anything and everything Arthur decides to drive into him, blindly forgiving any intrusion. Arthur plays with Merlin’s arse, two fingers twisting and scissoring, until Merlin’s hips are twitching out of control, his bound cock a squeezing, burning throb, practically gagging on his tongue to stay silent. Until Merlin’s hole is so aching and willing that Arthur can skip three fingers entirely and go straight to <em>four</em>.</p><p class="western">Four is the most they’ve ever done before. Merlin is about as offline as it’s possible to be, mentally, but he can vaguely remember how Arthur begins with this, the way he tucks them together, pinky and index under ring and middle. Merlin has sucked them like that, struggled with the width as he got closer to the base knuckles, the corners of his mouth stretching harshly to get them inside. The hungry gape of his arse struggles in the same spot, drawing taut at the sudden girth in a way that spikes up Merlin’s back like a hot pipe hit. He’s getting fucking <em>high</em>. His eyes roll helplessly behind closed lids.</p><p class="western">“This isn’t even close to the end, pet,” Arthur says. He sounds hazardously close to breathless in front of their audience. “This time, I’m going to put it all inside. All of it. All of it,” he repeats, and strokes the spasming rim of Merlin’s slick-full hole with his thumb. Merlin bites down on his lip again to stop himself from crying, screaming. He’s shuddering constantly now. Really—can they—will he really—?</p><p class="western">He can’t. He can. He can’t—he has to. But he can’t. But he <em>can</em>.</p><p class="western">There’s no reprieve. Arthur doesn’t draw back, he shoves forward, and Merlin’s arse feels like it might tear wide as the last knuckles begin to slide through, but it doesn’t. Arthur made sure he was prepared. He can, he can.</p><p class="western">After the first, barest width of Arthur’s actual palm breaches, Arthur slowly, slowly, slowly spreads his fingers inside of Merlin.</p><p class="western">It feels huge, fucking huge, beyond understanding huge, and more than that—deep. Arthur’s cock can get deeper, but like this, it feels, it feels like Arthur’s touching parts up so far inside it should be impossible to survive. A fullness of penetration that shouldn’t be possible. So new, and so violent, and so public, Merlin has to kick his feet a bit, scratch the air, weep into the floor, to keep himself from flying apart noisily.</p><p class="western">And still, still, how, Merlin doesn’t know, but still it manages to continue. Another cold slick of lube poured carelessly over his arse, getting everywhere, messy and dripping and clinging, and Arthur is scraping with his thumb, barely digging the tip of it in beside the rest of his fingers. “We can do it, love,” he whispers, “Come on, come on, give it to me.”</p><p class="western">Merlin writhes, rolls his forehead against the tile, mouth open soundlessly shouting, and it breaks into him like an alien invasion, incomprehensibly foreign and awesome. It’s a trainwreck of wild, extreme sensation, pain but not pain, straight momentum carrying forward the bulk of Arthur’s hand until the burn abruptly subsides at the thinner wrist.</p><p class="western">The wrist.</p><p class="western">The wrist, because Arthur’s hand is fully seated in Merlin’s arse.</p><p class="western">Merlin has never felt so <em>owned</em> before. Everything they’ve done, all the orders he’s followed, all the heights and depths Arthur has taken him to, have nothing on this. He cannot move, not even twitch, without the sense of Arthur. He can’t <em>think</em> because <em>Arthur.</em></p><p class="western">He can feel the shove and bump of so many knuckles, whole fingers, as Arthur carefully curls his hand into a fist. Merlin’s speared helplessly through. Trussed and bound and split so wide his arse will gape for days. When Arthur rotates his fist, it’s like a paddle or whip on flesh, except right on his prostate, brutal and cruelly good. This is a new wall, Merlin’s finally lost the last vestige of sense that—that he owns his own body. Arthur’s put his fist in Merlin’s arse and penetrated him, and it might as well have come out the other side because Merlin feels <em>murdered</em> by it.</p><p class="western">Arthur knows him, always knows how to take him to the next level.</p><p class="western">Arthur says, “Never, I’ve never,” and, “Fuck, yes, fuck, yes,” and <em>“Merlin,”</em> and hot, sticky come hits the back of Merlin’s thighs.</p><p class="western">Merlin howls when Arthur reaches around and takes off his cocking. Screams and comes in an agonizing perfection of dissolution.</p><p class="western">He drifts. A feather, a snowflake. Gravity seems like a choice.</p><p class="western">The weightless sensation of coming down from that kind of high is not unfamiliar these days. The excruciating pressure of Arthur’s fist still inside him is simply an added means for battling off the return to self. Merlin clenches, arches, milking it. How long could they stay like this, Arthur rammed into him so deep? It took so long to get here, he doesn’t want it to ever end. He wants to keep it this way for hours.</p><p class="western">Arthur knows better though. With a slow, dull pulse of intense pressure ending in a slick, loud pop, he pulls his fist free of Merlin’s arse. The absence is a roiling mess of nausea that makes Merlin whine wordlessly. Arthur hears and rubs around Merlin’s hole, strokes two fingers back inside and kisses the small of Merlin’s back to help ease it up.</p><p class="western">And maybe tomorrow they’ll have decided that Merlin’s just not cut out for the scene stage. Maybe they’ll ask Arthur to unbuckle the proverbial collar and continue taking other clients. For the sake of the business. Maybe there will be a war over it, tearing it all apart. Maybe Merlin will bring Castle to the ground. It doesn’t matter; Arthur’s got him, he <em>has </em>him, and Merlin has the surety of a martyr that this is a forever deal.</p><p class="western">Arthur owns him.</p><p class="western">He owns Arthur.</p><p class="western">End of story.</p><p>
  <strong>END</strong>
</p><p>Talk to me about all the things on <a href="https://kickflaw.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.</p>
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